Water pollution - Our water protection is inadequate

The recent decision not to proceed with a badly needed and long-awaited extension of Killarney’s sewerage network seems at best shortsighted and at worst recklessly negligent.

Just six years ago the consequences of an overwhelmed sewerage scheme were all too obvious — and shaming — when there was a dangerous, potentially lethal, cryptosporidium outbreak in Lough Corrib. At that time, most of Galway’s residents had to boil water before consuming it, just as if they were living in a Third World shanty town.

If that lesson was not enough to convince us we must do an awful lot more to protect vital natural resources, the European Court of Justice has pointed to Killarney’s biggest lake, Lough Lein, as an example of our indifference to EU waste water directives, especially in relation to the impact one-off domestic septic tanks can have on water sources.